Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Additives 1

As the health debate
over soda continues, new test results reignite concerns regarding
manufactured ingredients commonly used in soft drinks and other
processed foods. It was enough that mercury has been found in products with high fructose corn syrup thanks to industrial processing, but now industrially produced caramel coloring (ubiquitous in soda to create a more appealing, dark color) has been linked to a carcinogen known as 4-MI.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) found "alarming
levels" of the cancer-causing chemical 4 methylimidizole (4-MI) in
Coca-Cola drinks around the world. It forms when a solution of sugars is
heated with ammonia to make the artificial brown coloring, which is
also used in baked goods, soy sauces, gravies and beer.
As of January 2012, California requires a cancer-warning label on
soft drinks and other widely consumed products that lead to people
consuming at least 30 micrograms of 4-MI per day. In response to that
rule, Coke started using an alternative caramel coloring with
considerably lower 4-MI levels … but has yet to market the
less-contaminated drinks outside California

And then, the interesting part. A chart of 4-MI content by country. And look at who's number two...

This on the heels of renewed interest in how fast food / industrial food manufacturers are using the same deflect and deny tactics employed so successfully by the tobacco industry for so long. And what difference will this make to our current government? I predict "none at all." The current Tory government isn't simply business friendly, it's more like international business' crack whore. The evidence, on the other hand, just keeps piling up: if it has been commercially grown, or modified from the field in any way, it is probably better not to eat it. The only way to have true food security is to democratise the food system. By that I mean to distribute production across as many people as possible, to export nothing we do not priduce in surplus, and to import as little as possible. Canada needs to pursue food sovereigity before it pursues export capacity or the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

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Who the ?

Hitch-hiked across Canada in the mid-seventies, changing, in the process, from an Albertan into a Canadian. Entered post-secondary studies at Grant McEwan College in Edmonton, moving over to the U of Alberta a year later to read English Lit. Friends invited me out for a visit to Victoria, and a week later I had a job, place to live, and was enrolled at UVic. Married two years later, we had twins (a boy, a girl, and a vasectomy), moved back to Alberta where we ran an over-educated New Agriculture farm for fourteen years. After the kids moved out, moved back to Victoria where we discovered sea kayaking. Live quietly, trying to pursue a life of voluntary simplicity, although we occasionally fail to live up to our own ideals. Still married, 28 years later, to the same person--and quite happy about it. Currently working on a book about Canadian food security issues.